After you use Google Vault to search for the data you want, you can export a copy of that data and download it for further analysis. An export contains the following information:
- A comprehensive copy of the data that matched your search criteria
- The metadata you need to link the exported data to individual users in your organization
- The corroborating information required to prove that the exported data matches the data stored on Google’s servers
On this page
- Gmail exports
- Google Chat & Groups exports
- Google Drive exports
- Google Voice exports
- Google Calendar exports
- Google Gemini app exports
- Error reports
- Error report contents
Gmail exports
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How Chat messages are organized in an export file
To provide context for Chat messages, your search results, preview, and export files include messages sent in the same conversation or thread as the matching messages. Chat messages are organized in an export file as follows:
- Messages are grouped by conversation, thread, or Chat space.
- If your export includes messages from several conversations, the conversations are in reverse chronological order based on the most recent matching message. For example, if the last matching message in one conversation was sent at 1 PM, and the last matching message in another conversation was sent at 8 PM, messages from the conversation with the 8 PM message are listed first in the export file, then the messages from the conversation with the 1 PM message.
- Within each conversation or Chat space, messages are in chronological order.
Note: If you review your export in an email client, messages are in chronological order and aren’t grouped by conversation.
Reducing duplicate messages
When many messages in the same conversation or thread match your search, there can be overlap in the messages provided for context. To avoid exporting duplicate messages, Vault evaluates the overlap and groups messages accordingly.
For example, a conversation has 2 messages that match the search query, one sent at 9 AM on Monday and the other sent at 3 PM on Monday. The matching messages have the following context windows:
- 9 AM message: 9 PM Sunday to 9 PM Monday
- 3 PM message: 3 AM Monday to 3 AM Tuesday
The context windows overlap between 3 AM and 9 PM Monday. When the messages are exported, only one series of messages is returned for the conversation and it includes all messages sent between 9 PM Sunday and 3 AM Tuesday.
If another message in the conversation matches but was sent more than 24 hours after the previous matching message, then a second message grouping is created and returned in the export. Continuing the previous example, if another matching message was sent at 11 AM Thursday, its context window is from 11 PM Wednesday to 11 PM Thursday. This window doesn’t overlap with the previous window, which ended at 3 AM Tuesday, so the messages in this window are returned in a second group.
Information | File name | Description |
---|---|---|
Message contents | export_name-N.zip |
PST or mbox files with the contents and details of the exported messages. Learn about options for reviewing PST and mbox files. The message files are named export_name-account-randomstring.mbox or export_name-account-randomstring.pst, where account is the full email address of the custodian (the account that sent or received the message). If the messages for an account exceed 1 GB for PST files or 10 GB for mbox files, they're exported in zip files. The files within are appended with a 6-character randomized string. The zip files are numbered sequentially. For example, if there are more than 10 GB of mbox files in the export, my-export could contain the following files for user1@example.com: my-export-1.zip my-export-2.zip If you're exporting PST files, the extension of the additional files is .pst. To decrypt client-side encrypted messages in mbox files, use the decrypter utility (beta). To view client-side encrypted emails in the PST format, import each users’ p7m file into Microsoft Outlook. |
Message metadata |
export_name-metadata.csv export_name-metadata.xml |
In addition to the fields that are available in both the CSV and XML, Gmail Classification labels are only included in the XML file. |
Accounts and message count | export_name-result-counts.csv |
A CSV file that lists the accounts of message owners included in the export, the number of messages owned by each account, and how many messages were successfully exported or had errors. |
Drive links | export_name-drive-links.csv | A CSV file that lists the Drive file hyperlinks extracted from the Gmail message content. This file is only included if you enable the Export linked Drive files option and there is at least one Drive hyperlink in the exported messages. For each hyperlink, you get the:
If the same email ID appears more than once, multiple Drive links were found in the same message body. The CSV file includes the hyperlinks regardless of whether you have permission to export them. You can look up the document ID in the Drive export files or error metadata to see if the export of a hyperlink was successful. |
Error report |
export_name-errors.xml |
An XML file that lists errors retrieving messages. It's always part of the export, even when no errors occurred. |
Messages that didn't convert to PST | export_name-conversion_errors-N.zip |
When you export in PST format, this file contains any messages that weren't converted to PST. Each message is a separate EML file named with the value of the You get many zip files when there are more than 10 GB of messages. |
File checksums | File checksums | A file that lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export. |
Google Chat & Groups exports
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Information | File name | Description |
---|---|---|
Message contents | export_name-N.zip |
Zip files of PST or mbox files. These files contain the contents and details of the exported messages. For Chat messages, these details include when the sender edited or deleted a message. The file names end with an increment to distinguish the files. Learn about options for reviewing PST and mbox files. You get multiple zip files in the following scenarios:
To decrypt client-side encrypted messages in mbox files, use the decrypter utility (beta). To view client-side encrypted emails in the PST format, import each user's p7m file into Microsoft Outlook. |
Google Groups membership information | export_name-group-membership.csv |
A CSV file that lists the following information for each group member:
|
Message metadata |
export_name-metadata.xml export_name-metadata.csv |
Note: PST file contents can’t be correlated with the XML file metadata. |
Accounts and message count | export_name-results-count.csv | A CSV file that lists the accounts of message owners included in the export and the number of messages owned by each account. |
Error reports |
error.csv export_name–failed-group-membership-lookups.csv (Groups exports) |
Error reports are included only if the export encounters errors.
|
File checksums | File checksums | Lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export. |
Google Drive exports
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Information | File name | Description |
---|---|---|
Files | export_name_N.zip |
Contains all the files and sites found by your search. Vault exports up to 10 GB of data in a single compressed file. If you export more than 10 GB of data, Vault creates multiple files. Exported files are named with the original name of the file followed by an underscore ("_") and the Drive file ID. Exported Google files are converted as follows:
Note: When you export client-side encrypted files, the files remain encrypted, and the filenames end with |
File metadata | export_name-metadata.xml |
Contains metadata, including:
|
Accounts and doc IDs | export_name-custodian-docid.csv |
Lists user accounts with their associated document IDs. Use this information to determine which users have access to the exported files. This file is not included if you're exporting Gmail data and you enable the Export linked Drive files option. For details, go to Start an export. |
Error reports |
error.csv export_name-incomplete-accounts.csv |
Error reports are included only if the export encounters errors.
|
File checksums | File checksums | The file lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export. |
Google Voice exports
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Information | File name | Description |
---|---|---|
Voice data files | export_name-N.zip | A zip file is generated for each account and contains PST or mbox files of text conversations, call logs, voicemail MP3 audio files, and voicemail transcriptions. |
File metadata | export_name-metadata.xml | An XML file is generated that contains metadata as it exists on Google servers. |
File checksums | File checksums | A checksum file is generated with message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files included in the export. |
Error report |
error.csv |
Error reports are included only if the export encounters errors. Learn more |
Note: Unlike other services, Voice exports don’t include a count file.
Google Calendar exports
Information | File name | Description |
---|---|---|
Files | export_name_N.zip |
Internet Calendar Scheduling (ICS) or Personal Storage Table (PST) files with users' calendar events. One file is created for each user. For extremely large calendars, the export might be split into several files. When you export client-side encrypted files, the export contains separate files:
To decrypt the files, use the Google client-side decrypter. Export an event
Export a PST file If the PST file doesn’t support an email address format, the address is replaced with the placeholder |
File metadata | export_name-metadata.csv | An identifier for each event and the account to which it belongs |
Accounts and event count | export_name-result-counts.csv |
The file includes for each account:
|
Error reports | export_name-errors.xml |
The file lists the errors that occurred when retrieving events. The file is always part of the export, even when no errors occur. For details, go to Error report contents for Calendar (later on this page). |
Gemini app exports
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Information | File name | Description |
---|---|---|
Conversation content | export_name.zip |
A zipped file containing one XML file for each conversation owner. Each XML file contains the exported prompts and responses that match your search criteria. To provide context, Vault includes all prompts and responses from the same conversation sent 12 hours before and 12 hours after the matched prompt or response. |
Accounts and conversations count | export_name-result-counts.csv |
A CSV file that lists the accounts of conversation owners included in the export and how many messages were successfully exported or had errors. |
File checksums | File checksums | A checksum file is generated with message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files included in the export. |
Error report |
export_name-error.xml |
An XML file that lists errors retrieving conversations. It's always part of the export, even when no errors occurred. Learn more. |
Note: Unlike other services, Gemini app exports don’t include a metadata file.
Error reports
When Vault is unable to export data from a service, Vault generates an error report. The report lists the items with export errors along with more details and metadata.
Vault reports two types of errors:
- Transient errors—A backend server was unable to retrieve the email message or file. The item should be available for export when you search for it later.
- Non-transient errors—Any error that's not explicitly labeled as transient is the result of an issue that cannot be corrected. Typically these errors occur when a message attachment or file was deleted, isn't supported for export, or can't be converted to the requested format.
To determine if the problem is transient or non-transient, open the CSV file with Google Sheets or another spreadsheet app and find the Error Description column. Note: Error descriptions aren't available for Voice exports.
Recover from transient errors
You can use message and file details to search for and export the data that wasn't exported due to transient errors:
- If the error report includes messages with transient errors, use each message’s RFC 822 identifier to find those specific messages when you search again. The format of the search term is rfc822msgid:identifier.
- If the error report includes Drive files with transient errors, use each file's title to find those specific files when you search again. The format of the search term is title:"title-of-file".
Error report contents
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